RIO DE JANEIRO — President Biden commented publicly on Ukraine Monday for the first time since authorizing Kyiv to use American rockets far inside Russia — as Moscow’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov sat across the table from him at the G20 conference.
“We all have to work to end the conflicts and crises that are eroding progress in food security around the world,” Biden, 81, said as he read from notes at an event ostensibly about fighting poverty and hunger.
“The United States strongly supports Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Everyone around this table in my view should as well,” Biden said as Lavrov and other world leaders listened.
“And by the way, Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine led to the highest record food prices in all of history.”
The remarks came hours after Biden for the first time authorized Ukraine’s use of long-range American rockets inside Russia in an attempt to boost President Volodymyr Zelensky’s position ahead of anticipated peace talks led by President-elect Donald Trump.
Biden did not directly mention that decision, which was first reported Sunday — as Russia launched massive airstrikes on Ukraine to boost its own hand during the anticipated end-game for the conflict as Trump, 78, vows to quickly broker a peace deal in which Ukraine is expected to lose some Russian-occupied territory.
Ukraine reportedly will use the US-provided Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) in an attempt to halt a counteroffensive by Russia, backed up North Korean troops, in the Kursk region of Russia, which Ukrainian troops still hold land as a bargaining chip after a surprise cross-border raid in August.
Biden also worked in what could be one of his final digs at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the conflict in Gaza, saying that “Israel has a right to defend itself after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, but how it defends itself against Hamas, which hides itself behind civilians, matters a great deal.”
The president urged the conference members to “increase the pressure on Hamas, which is currently refusing” a ceasefire deal that would free hostages and halt fighting.
Biden has been incredibly tight-lipped since Vice President Kamala Harris lost to Trump in the Nov. 5 election and has not taken any press questions yet on his three-stop South American tour, which also featured his participation at the APEC summit in Lima, Peru, where he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and stopped Sunday in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil.
The retiring president, who suspended his own re-election campaign in July, hasn’t answered a single question from journalists since the campaign ended.
Desperate journalists on Sunday night in vain held up signs to entice Biden to talk after he arrived in Rio de Janeiro — with one reporter even bellowing across the tarmac asking why Biden was hiding from the press.
Biden’s spokespeople had forecast that he would be answering shouted queries during the weeklong trip — in lieu of a traditional formal press conference — but even those opportunities have not materialized.
Defenders of America’s oldest-ever president, including aides who have helped with prior international events, argued to The Post that some of the blame the media-interaction blackout can be attributed to difficulty negotiating with host countries — and noted that even Biden’s remarks at the hunger event initially were supposed to be closed to media coverage.